Grenada

Region: Central America and Caribbean

Official language: English

Population: 114,621 (2024 est.)

Nationality: Grenadian(s) (noun), Grenadian (adjective)

Land area: 344 sq km (133 sq miles)

Capital: Saint George's

National anthem: "Hail Grenada," by Irva Merle Baptiste/Louis Arnold Masanto

National holiday: Independence Day, 7 February (1974)

Population growth: 0.27% (2024 est.)

Time zone: UTC –4

Flag: The flag of Grenada depicts a rectangle divided into four triangles: two yellow triangles in the top and bottom fields and two green triangles in the left and right fields. The four triangles are bordered on the outside by a red rectangle that includes six yellow stars—three on top and three on the bottom (representing the country’s six parishes). In the center of the triangles is a red circle with a yellow star in the center (representing the capital, Saint George). Finally, a clove of nutmeg (depicted using yellow, red, and green) is featured in the flag’s left green triangle. The nutmeg represents Grenada’s history as a spice exporter. The flag uses yellow, green, and red to reflect Grenada’s pan-African heritage.

Motto: “The Land, the People, the Light”

Independence: February 7, 1974 (from the UK)

Government type: parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy; a Commonwealth realm

Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal

Legal system: common law based on the English model

Belonging to the Windward Islands in the southern Caribbean, Grenada reflects the powerful European empires that shaped its people and culture. The country is actually composed of the island of Grenada and several smaller islands, including Carriacou and Petite Martinique.

After Christopher Columbus landed on the islands in 1498, French and British colonists descended on Grenada, devastating the Indigenous population and culture. After 1650, the islands fell under French colonial and then British rule, and were later repopulated by the descendants of European colonists, enslaved Africans, and West Indian immigrants. In 1983, the United States led an invasion of the country. Grenada was devastated in September 2004 when Hurricane Ivan devastated 90 percent of the country.

Note: unless otherwise indicated, statistical data in this article is sourced from the CIA World Factbook, as cited in the bibliography.

People and Culture

Population: Grenada's ethnically diverse population reflects its eventful and often troubled history. At the time of the 2011 census, 82.4 percent of Grenadians were of African descent, 13.3 percent were of mixed descent, 2.2 percent were East Indian, and a small number were Arawak mixed with Carib. On the islands of Petite Martinique and Carriacou, people claim a unique heritage of mixed African, West Indies, French, and Scottish ancestry.

Most Grenadians practice some form of Christianity: 49.2 percent are Protestant; 36 percent are Roman Catholic; 1.2 percent are Jehovah's Witnesses, and another 1.2 percent are Rastafarians. About 5.7 percent of Grenadians do not practice any religion. (2011 estimates).

In 2024, Grenada had an estimated birth rate of 13.3 births per 1,000 people. Average life expectancy at birth is 73.7 years for men and 79.1 years for women (2024 estimate). The infant mortality rate is an average 9 deaths for every 1,000 live births (2024 estimate). Most people live in large extended families, with several generations living under one roof. Grenada's HDI value for 2022 is 0.793— which put the country in the High human development category—positioning it at 73 out of 193 countries and territories.

Indigenous People: When Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Grenada in 1498, he found it inhabited by the Caribs, or Kalinagos, a group of expert navigators and raiders who had made their way from the South American mainland and conquered the island's early Arawak and Ciboney peoples ("Carib" comes from the Arawak term for "cannibal").

Although the Caribs forced the evacuation of England's first Grenadine colony in the early seventeenth century, French colonists supported by their military forced out the Caribs and Arawaks only forty years later. Faced with capture by the French troops, many of the remaining Carib men, women, and children jumped to their deaths from the island cliffs at Sauteurs. Only scattered descendants and faint traces of these earlier inhabitants remain in modern Grenada.

Education: Grenada follows a British model for its educational system. The first six years of primary education, beginning at age five, are free and compulsory. All education is in English, although students must also take French and Spanish classes.

The country has one vocational institute, an Open campus of the University of West Indies, and an assortment of technical schools, including T. A. Marryshow Community College. Run by American administrators, St. George's University on Grenada is well known internationally for its medical school.

Health Care: Grenada has a strong health care system, particularly by Caribbean standards. Based on World Health Organization models, Grenada's health network emphasizes widespread access to basic health care, attention to the prevention of disease, and specialized programs for prenatal and early childhood medical care. Free basic care is provided to those in need.

The country has four major state-run hospitals: General Hospital and Mt. Gay Psychiatric Hospital in the town of St. George's, Princess Alice Hospital in the parish of St. Andrew, and Princess Royal Hospital on Carriacou, . The country also has facilities for senior citizens and for mentally or developmentally disabled children. Free dental care is provided through the hospitals.

Grenada has a network of six district health centers and thirty clinics throughout the country. St. George's School of Medicine, part of St. George's University on Grenada, is a training center for medical providers throughout the Caribbean and beyond.

Food: Grenada's reputation as the Spice Island is well deserved. The rich, fragrant spices that it is famous for exporting make their way into the islands' blend of African, West Indian, and French foods. Seafood, tropical fruits, and vegetables provide the base for Grenadian cuisine, although yams, cassava, and breadfruit are equally important.

Cooked in coconut milk and spiced with turmeric, breadfruit becomes the traditional dish known as "oil down." Breadfruit is also combined with bananas to make a salad, ground to make flour, and its flowers are sugared for desert.

Meat and dasheen bush leaves (also called taro leaves) are combined to make traditional Grenadian callaloo. Chili peppers are used in nearly all of Grenada's traditional recipes. Spices such as nutmeg and fresh mace are also common ingredients.

Arts & Entertainment: Sports are a common pastime in Grenada. The most popular sports are cricket, soccer (football), and netball, although basketball, golf, and tennis are increasingly popular. Visitors will also find children playing rounders, a baseball-style game that uses a cricket bat and tennis ball.

For children over the age of fourteen, Intercol provides an annual forum for athletic competitions of all sorts. Top athletes appear every year in the Grenada International Triathlon's Tri de Spice and the Grenada Athletic Association's championship.

The Carriacou Regatta in August is only one of Grenada's boating events, combining competition with festivals, dancing, and street parties. The Spice Island Billfish Tournament draws fishermen from around the world to the plentiful waters of Grenada's coasts.

The small islands of Grenada also have a rich tradition of music, literature, theater, and art. One of the birthplaces of calypso and reggae music, Grenada boasts internationally renowned musicians, including reggae artist and musician David Emmanuel, jazz keyboardist Kingsley Etienne, and legendary calypso artist Slinger Francisco, also known as the Mighty Sparrow. Grenada's African drumming and dance troupes, and particularly those of Carriacou, are known throughout the world for their sophistication and originality, though many Grenadian dancers also perform traditional European folk dances. Grenada's Heritage Theatre Company performs comedy and drama productions and offers theater and arts workshops.

Holidays: Grenadians celebrate national holidays with food, dance, and drink, in homes in the rural areas, and at balls and hotel-hosted parties in the cities. Holidays include New Year's Day (January 1), Labour Day (May 1), Emancipation Day (first Monday of August), Thanksgiving (October 25), Christmas (December 25), and Boxing Day (December 26). Of all of these holidays, the most important is Independence Day (February 7), when a military parade takes place in St. George's and locals gather for beach parties.

Grenada's Christians also celebrate Christmas with church services and caroling, Easter with kite flying competitions, and Corpus Christi (in May or June) with the season's first plantings.

Grenada highlights it musical heritage during the Pure Grenada Music Festival in April. The end of June ushers in Fisherman's Birthday, when the religious feasts of Saints Peter and Paul are marked with the blessing of fishing nets and boats, boat races, and still more street festivals. In the second week of August (in Spring in Carriacou), Grenadians celebrate Carnival with music, musical competitions, food, dancing, and street festivals.

Environment and Geography

Topography: Grenada's islands are volcanic in origin. The largest, Grenada, rises dramatically from the Atlantic Ocean with steep, rocky cliffs and white sand beaches. The mountainous interior of Grenada rises to its highest point on Mount Saint Catherine at 840 meters (2,756 feet) above sea level, and drops down in the form of dramatic waterfalls and steep hills. The island is well irrigated with streams and crater lakes, including the island's largest lake, Grand Etang.

The islands of Petite Martinique and Carriacou are flatter, with considerably less elevation above sea level.

Natural Resources: Some of Grenada's most important resources are tropical fruit and timber. The country's coastlines also provide deepwater harbors. Most significantly, Grenada has a wealth of spices, earning it the reputation during the colonial fifteenth through nineteenth centuries as an "Isle of Spice." Of the many spices exported from Grenada, the most important is nutmeg, though cloves and cinnamon are also significant.

Plants & Animals: The dry, sandy climate of the smaller islands limits animal and plant species to those capable of living amid sparse soil and scant water. Dry weather plants, lizards, iguanas, and a wealth of seabirds populate the islands of Petite Martinique and Carriacou.

The island of Grenada provides a far more lush range of habitats, from the mountains of the interior, to the crater lakes, to mangrove swamps. The tropical rainforest in the inland includes rare reserves of teak, native monkeys, opossums, iguana, mongooses, orchids, and other rare tropical flowers.

Climate: Grenada is positioned between the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, north of Trinidad and Tobago. Its tropical climate means warm temperatures, except in the slightly cooler mountains in Grenada's interior.

Grenada's dry season, lasting from February to May, is more than made up for by the rainy season between June and December. On the coast, monthly rainfall averages about 150 millimeters (6 inches), but the rainfall over Grenada's lush interior forests averages far more.

Grenada is also vulnerable to hurricanes and tropical storms that sweep across the Atlantic during the rainy season. Although no major hurricane had hit the islands since 1955, Hurricane Ivan ravaged Grenada in September 2004, devastating most of the country. It was struck again by Hurricane Emily 2005.

Economy

Grenada remains a relatively poor country. Its estimated 2023 gross domestic product (GDP) was US$2.008 billion and its GDP per capita was an estimated $15,900. In 2017 it had an estimated unemployment rate of 24 percent.

Industry: Grenada produces food and beverages as well as textiles. The country has some light assembly operations and a construction industry. Education and call-center services have also become notable industries in Grenada.

The impact of 2004's Hurricane Ivan on the islands cannot be overstated. With over 90 percent of the island's superstructure damaged and up to 10,000 people left homeless, Grenada's industries were devastated. Following the hurricane, Grenada began rebuilding with the help of foreign aid.

Agriculture: Grenada's farmers grow bananas, cocoa, nutmeg, mace, citrus, avocados, root crops, sugarcane, corn, mangoes, and other vegetables in the islands' fertile soil. The island nation is particularly well known for its spice crops. Agriculture contributed to 3.3 percent of GDP in 2023.

Tourism: Grenada has established a tourism industry based on the islands' stunning coastlines and natural beauty. As with the agricultural and industrial sectors, tourism was hard hit by Hurricane Ivan, which destroyed or damaged hotels, roads, telephone lines, and other key components of the tourism industry. In the decade that followed, the sector recovered somewhat. A record-high 528,077 day-trippers and overnight tourists visited the island nation in 2018, according to the Grenada Tourism Authority. The following year, it saw 525,453 visitors, of whom 162,902 stayed overnight. However, the tourism sector was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which reached the country in 2020.

Government

French and British colonists struggled to subdue the Caribs who inhabited the islands in the fifteenth century. The French finally took control of the islands through the brutal murder and oppression of the islands' Indigenous peoples. Bringing in enslaved people from Africa, the French repopulated the islands and set up a colonial government primarily interested in exporting spices, indigo dyes, sugar, and cotton from the islands.

Fierce struggles between the French and British during the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century finally resulted in British colonial control in 1763. The British continued to bring in indentured laborers to work the plantations into the nineteenth century. When slavery was abolished on the island in 1834, over 24,000 enslaved Africans were living in Grenada.

It was not until 1967 that Grenada was granted semi-autonomy by the British government, though still within the framework of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Joining with the Grenadine Islands of Petite Martinique and Carriacou in 1973, Grenada adopted a constitution in 1973 and became a fully independent nation in 1974.

Grenada's first independent government proved ineffectual and corrupt, but in 1979, a socialist-influenced group under the leadership of a London-educated lawyer named Maurice Bishop seized power in a bloodless coup. Calling itself the New Jewel Movement, the government instituted widespread economic reforms, restructured and improved education and health care, began construction of new infrastructure on the islands, and reinstituted human rights protections. Though overwhelmingly popular, the government fell victim to a violent military coup in 1983, which resulted in the arrest and eventual execution of several leaders.

The new government dealt harshly with the popular protests that followed, shooting and killing or arresting protestors. Immediately afterward, the United States invaded the island, supported by a US-Caribbean pact, and ousted the leaders with military and civilian casualties. The United States removed troops soon afterward, though Caribbean troops remained for several years afterward. Democratic elections have been held regularly since 1983.

Grenada is still a parliamentary democracy and a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Its monarch is drawn from Britain's line of royal succession and is represented within Grenada by a governor-general.

Grenada's administrative divisions consist of six parishes (Saint Andrew, Saint David, Saint George, Saint John, Saint Mark, Saint Patrick) and one dependency (Carriacou and Petite Martinique).

Grenada's Parliament is made up of a thirteen-member Senate and a fifteen-member House of Representatives. Senate members are appointed, ten by the ruling government and three by the opposition party. House members are elected by popular vote. All members of Parliament serve five-year terms.

In 2022, Dickon Mitchell's National Democratic Congress wins the June general election.

Interesting Facts

• Grenada is one of the world's leading producers of nutmeg.
• The French governor of Martinique, Jacques-Dyel du Parquet, purchased Grenada in 1650 for a few hatchets, a collection of glass beads, and several bottles of alcohol.
• Grenadian law prohibits the construction of any building that reaches above the height of a coconut palm, a measure designed to prevent noise pollution.
• Though Grenada only won one medal in the 2016 Summer Olympics, many media outlets recognized that by a different measure, the small country led the competition in number of medals per capita.
• Vehicles in Grenada follow the British convention of driving on the left-hand side of the road.

Bibliography

"Grenada." Human Development Insights, 13 Mar. 2024, United Nations Development Programme, hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025.

"Grenada." The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 15 Jan. 2025, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/grenada/. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025.

"Grenada." BBC News, 27 Mar. 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19598301. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025.

“Grenada Reports Stellar Tourism Performance in 2019.” Caribbean Tourism Organization, 30 Jan. 2020, www.onecaribbean.org/grenada-reports-stellar-tourism-performance-in-2019. Accessed 27 Aug. 2020.‌